"Then where''s the weingmittee?"
Mira sent her question out into the open air, though she expected no answer.
They moved a little closer into the system, and a massive Red Demonmand ship hovered like a dark monolith before them, with countless smaller ships scattered around it.
It was clearly a Red Demon fleet, bigger than they had ever seen before, and even sending a few jitters of weariness and fear down Alex''s spine.
He knew that whatever Red Demon was in charge of that ship, was probably much stronger than he, or even both of their strengthbined, could handle.
Yet despite this, everything seemed so… quiet.
Mira tapped a few buttons on the ship''s console, zooming in on the hugemand ship''s exterior.
"All readings show… nothing. No life signs, no energy emissions. It''s like they''re all just… dead."
A cold feeling crept into Alex''s chest as he watched the silent fleet, thousands of Red Demon ships frozen in ce.
Even the gigantic gship, which towered over the others like a mountain, seemed the most lifeless and cold of them all.
"Are they… ghost ships?"
Alex whispered, barely believing his own words.
"I don''t know."
Mira replied, even though his question wasn''t specifically geared to her.
"But I''m not detecting any damage. It''s like everyone on board just… vanished."
Alex nced at her.
A sense of dread building.
"We''ve faced some nasty tricks from the Red Demons before, but this? Whole fleets abandoned without a trace? I don''t like it one bit."
However, while he thought that, there were still some small questions of reasoning at the back of his mind that cropped up.
''But the Red Demons wouldn''t truly be so wasteful, right? To even offer such a huge fleet up as bait seems utterly ridiculous and wasteful beyond reason, even for the likes of the Red Demons. Besides, what would they even be in ce to bait? Some Federation fleet? But I''ve heard no news of such a Federal fleet…''
"Neither do I."
Mira''s voice echoed out as Alex raced through his thoughts, and she leaned closer to the console, taking in the lifeless fleet they were surrounded by.
"But we''re already here. We should investigate. If there''s even a small chance to gather intel on whatever could do this… it could be a game changer for the Federation!"
Soon enough, they drew closer to one of the smaller ships.
The eeriness of the fleet only became more overwhelming the closer they came to these frozen pieces of Red Demon might.
Each hull they passed seemed more lifeless than thest, stretching on like a never ending graveyard.
Inside, Alex''s fingers began to drum against his console nervously.
He checked themunication feed for any broadcast, switching to the open channels, but there was still nothing.
They were close enough now that they were able to scan some of the ships with their spatial perceptions, but even that didn''t feed them any new information as it just ryed back to them what they already knew.
Even Mira''s more advanced spatial perception wasn''t of any help, as the idea that perhaps a situation like the one in the Primordial Expanse, where they weren''t able to detect life forms with their perception, was urring in this ce had crossed both of their minds more than once.
But Mira didn''t detect any spatial disturbances.
After a few more minutes of floating through the shipyard, they came within scanning distance of the hugemand ship.
"Scanning the gship''s bride now."
Mira murmured, a little nervous as the possibility that they might find something started to be scarier than not finding anything.
If they scanned the bridge only to find that a strong Red Demon, stronger than either of the two could handle, was still present…
They wouldn''t even have time to run.
Eventually, Mira''s eyes widened as she looked at the screen.
"Alex… you''re going to want to see this!"
He leaned over, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers as the imagey out before him.
Inside themand ship''s bridge, a single Red Demony slumped in his chair, with his expression frozen in terror.
He wasn''t alive, to the great relief of the two of them, but that didn''t help to ease the butt-clenching tension that arose due to this.
"Doesn''t he… look like one of the Red Demon princes…?"
Alex was the first to speak up, a little nervous to even voice his thoughts out loud.
Neither of the two of them had met, or seen any of the Red Demon princes before, and the case was probably the same for the rest of the Federation, but they had seen plenty descriptions of them from the Red Demon propaganda they had obtained from the few battles where the Federation came out on top.
It was said that the Red Demon princes, in contrast to their normal peers, had much darker scales than normal, and even a hint of purple in some ces.
Although it wasn''t confirmed, it was spected that the ''royal'' Red Demons looked different from their normal image due to the fact that they had purer bloodlines.
But then again, that was all spection, and schrs, researchers and even some strong awakened just broiled it down to propaganda.
It wasn''t a bad argument to make, either — after all their information dide from propaganda they had obtained from the Red Demons themselves.
But what Alex and Mira were seeing right now seemed much more real than fake…
Knock!
Knock!
Knock!
"What the fuck was that!?"
However, the two of them received the biggest jolt to their hearts since they saw each other die when a sudden knocking came from the airlock of Alex''s ship!
Immediately, the two of them summoned their armour to their bodies with near instant speed, and stretched their spatial perceptions out with the utmost focus.
But regardless of all this sudden preparation, they found nothing outside the airlock with their perceptions…
Knock! Knock!
But there clearly was something there as the knocking continued!